BRANDON, S.D. — After a disappointing end to Friday night’s midget feature, Tanner Thorson climbed aboard his sprint car and won the USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car portion of the inaugural USAC Nationals at Huset’s Speedway.
Thorson turned his focus to the sprint car and his upcoming leading role on the pole for the evening’s 25-lap nightcap.
A smooth sail for 23 of the 25-lap distance hit choppy waters as Thorson neared scoring what appeared to be a relatively stress-free feature win.
However, that wasn’t the case as race leader Thorson became sideways in turn four, resulting in he and 16th-running Charles Davis Jr. locking horns.
With both cars sideways and nearly going on their own respective wild rides, the yellow flag was displayed while Thorson somehow managed to escape the calamity without stopping or spinning.
By the skin of his teeth, Thorson resumed, then promptly engaged in his own personal green-white-checkered contest with Thomas Meseraull, who prevailed in a much similar situation in the preceding midget feature.
Thorson stayed tried and true on the topside for the remaining two circuits to capture his fourth series victory of the season in his Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports/AME Electrical – CSI – MVT/Spike/Stanton Chevy.
The four feature wins by Thorson have surpassed the most by a USAC National Sprint Car Rookie since Michael Lewis won three in 2003. It was also Thorson’s series-leading 11th overall USAC National feature victory this season, with seven in the midget added to four more in the sprint car.
“It was my bad. I got in there pretty hard trying to clear both (Ryan) Bernal and Charles. That was all my bad,” Thorson revealed. “It paid off in the end for us because we had a fast racecar. Starting there on the bottom, then working on the bottom, I feel like helped us for the first few laps.”
Eventually moving to the top shortly thereafter, that’s where Thorson performed most of his work, building a cushion of 1.5 seconds over his front row counterpart, Meseraull, who started second and followed Thorson in sync around the perimeter of the racetrack.
Meseraull managed to whittle a full second off Thorson’s lead in traffic, but once Thorson hit clear air once again, the interval grew back to 1.5 seconds until the flashing yellow lights for the Thorson/Davis slight tangle restacked the deck with two laps remaining.
Without traffic, Thorson stepped away to put a stamp on a winning performance while multiple battles raged back behind he and second-running Meseraull.
Tenth-starting Brady Bacon dipped underneath Robert Ballou for the third spot in turn three coming to the white flag while, simultaneously, Ballou and Jake Swanson touched wheels, getting Ballou’s car into a peculiar sideways position momentarily before he gathered it up and motored back past Kevin Thomas Jr. who had briefly nosed ahead off turn four for fourth.
Up front, it was all Thorson who put the race on ice with a 0.715-second margin of victory over Meseraull, Bacon and Ballou with Thomas Jr. rounding out the top five.
To see full results, turn to the next page.